Elly De La Cruz took Arizona Diamondbacks starter Jose Ruiz in the first plate appearance of the day, Nick Senzel later socked a three-run tater off Ruiz, too, and the Cincinnati Reds raced to a 7-3 victory over the Snakes on Sunday afternoon. That win wrapped up a series sweep and marked the fifth consecutive victory for the Reds.
Luke Weaver was perhaps the best version of himself in today’s start, going through 4.0 IP while keeping the potent Arizona offense off the board. As the rest of the rotation gets healthy, and as the team perhaps pursues upgrades to the starting rotation, him moving to a shorter relief role where his stuff truly plays up is a pretty obvious transition, and his velocity increase (and slight delivery alteration) over his last pair of starts sure looks like it’s already begun.